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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

A few months ago, WUW?'s College Station talent scout, DJ Rob, introduced us to the newcomer and College Station native, Justin Wilson and his Hometown Hero Mixtape. Without delay, JW jumps right back into the mixtape game with the Sick-A-Mundo Mixtape. Fans of JW will notice tremendous growth on this new project, from beat selection to lyrics to flow, Justin demonstrates how serious of a competitor he is in the Texas rap scene.

Justin wastes no time, starting off the tape with the soulful, 90s throwback jam - Charge it to the Game. After getting your ears warm, JW goes in on Greatest, over one of the best Fun. sampled beats we have heard yet. Track 3 features Wilson holding his own over Jay & Ye's Niggas in Paris beat (which is not easy to do). Other highlights are the grimey track - Tribute, Just Ridin, and a freestyle over the club bangin beat from Snap Back & Tatoos.

Although Justin's smoked out style is evident throughout the project, he succeeds at avoiding the cliched mary jane themed mixtape that has flooded the hip hop scene over the past couple years. From start to finish, Justin provides just what you are looking for in a mixtape: witty punchlines, dope sample, hard rhymes, and nice freestyles.

Blog-A-Mundo,WhatUpWally?

Make sure you also check out JW with the rest of College Station's finest perform the 2012 College Station Cypher:

WUW? favorite and eclectic hip hop sensation, Kids These Days, released their new album Traphouse Rock yesterday as a free download. Our Cincinnati correspondent, Gerald, had a chance to watch these Chi-Town youngster perform this summer at the Bunbury Music Festival, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and he was blown away by the depth of their sound (check out the video here). Kids These Days is composed of a trumpet, trombone, southern rock guitarist and vocalist, MC, drummer, Adele-esque keyboard player, and a bass. Not only do KTD pull off the peculiar mixture of sounds but they put on a live performance that not many bands or hip hop artists would not want to follow on stage.

Traphouse Rock features 7 tracks produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy. Check out the recent Rolling Stone article and enjoy the album.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The WUW? organization humbly began in early 2004 in Los Angeles, California as a mediocre crew hip hop producers, DJs, and cultural philosophers. A few weeks after attending a 19th birthday rollerskating party for Ashley Simpson we met 5 wide eyed, Baylor Bears that had just moved to the city of Angels to record a record under Joe Simpson's (yes the infamous Dallas youth pastor turned pimp and reality tv show "star") Papa Joe Records.

The band's name was Barefoot and they were fronted by the good looking Chris Pearson. A few years later the WUW? office moved to Dallas and started hosting a local music showcase featuring the likes of Jonathon Tyler, Larry (G)ee, Chris August, and Pearson's newly formed band Sleeperstar. Sleeperstar's first EP was laced with singable choruses, harmonies, and the energy of a pop punk band in an indie pop soundscape. The five piece band has come along way since those shitty soundsystems at Knox Street Pub. They have continued to hone their sound and create energetic songs to shuffle your toes to.

WUW? had the opportunity to watch the matured sounds of Sleeperstar in the booming metropolis of Bryan, Texas (that is the city next to College Station which is the city where Texas A&M is located). Beyond the blended harmonies, keys, killer drumming of Shaun Menary (photographer extraordinaire and former CS resident), we were impressed with the stage presence of Pearson. As comfortable covering Jay-Z and Garth Brooks as he is slamming the keys - Pearson delivers the kind of performance we have come to expect from top 40 mainstays like Maroon Five and the Fray. Check out our video footage of Sleeperstar performing live at the Grand Stafford Theatre in Bryan, Texas.

Texas Rain - One of the WUW? crews favorite songs of the evening... Couple problems with the video - The damn video intern is always messing the videos up... he will get it fixed shortly

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

DJ Chief-One has been undertaking the enormous project of capturing the 90s, by year, to present an all encompassing experience of 90s hits, b-sides, and remixes. The WUW? staff encourages you to travel with Chief-One to experience the songs that defined a generation, discover the hidden paths less traveled, and reflect on the decade that solidified hip hop music as one of the most important emergence in popular culture. Check out the full track lists at Okayplayer and sit back and enjoy this quest through the bizarre stories of love theories, sawed off shotguns, loot giving, down'em shutting, beat jacking, nature of naughtiness, mic passing, around jumping, Tennessee traveling, and neck protecting police sounds.

Not much commentary needed here... just one of the best producer/ DJs of all time remixing some of his favorite tracks. A little Nas, Biggie, Pharcyde, Jay-Z, etc... is enough to get your heads noddin.

Friday, October 12, 2012

WUW? hip hop production specialist, Kai, is always introducing the office to the newest, hottest, dopest, illest underground producers. A few months ago, he introduced us to the production duo Parallel Thought. Their Articulation EP from earlier this year has stayed in constant rotation ever since. PT has produced for artists such as G-Side and Del the Funky Homosapien and our attention was brought to this new project with Alabama MC - Gene the Southern Child, through a recent Spin article - Rap's Most Slept on Releases of 2012's Third Quarter. The production stays tight and GTSC's laid back southern vocals are a nice compliment. You can stream or download the album here:

Thursday, October 11, 2012

We found this track at Okayplayer today and felt that you should share in the joy that it brings. Two of the best to ever do it - The Black Keys and the Wu Tang mastermind The RZA - go in hard with this gentle combination of the blues rock sound and the unique flow and lyrics of the RZA.

This isn't the first time that the legends from Akron and RZA have hooked up. They connected on two tracks for the Blakroc project which placed some of the game's top MCs in the studio with Auerbach and Carney to produce 10 blues-hip-hop-rock-soul tracks that made the seemingly awkward fusion sound as natural as any Pete Rock or Dilla produced hip hop album.Check it out:

Friday, October 5, 2012

Robert Glasper, fresh off the release of the release of Black Radio, has come hard with a series of remixes that reproduce hip hop with a jazziness that would make Miles proud. The Houston native has a deep catalogue of experimental jazz and has become a mainstay in the hip hop world. Check out these remixes with Georgia Anne Muldrow, Mos Def, Black Milk, Badu, Pete Rock, Phonte, Questo, and the world famous Roots crew.
Listen to the Black Radio LP here:

Thursday, October 4, 2012

WUW? has been a fan of The Weeknd since he dropped House of Balloons, the first of his three part trilogy. We would say make sure you download the albums but it looks as if they have been taken down since he signed with Universal. You will have to content yourselves with the videos until his major label release (insert sad face).Rolling Blog,WhatUpWally?

Now ladies, even if you are a devout liberal, I must warn you, this Craig guy is extremely handsome and extremely intelligent. The only problem (and you probably won't care after the last two descriptors) is that he is a pure Ron Paul Libertarian Idealist. God love him (well if you believe in god, if not, earth love him) he is a good guy, but he is way to stuck within the narrow confines of laissez faire economics (which all economist pretty much recognize as a fallacy).

Look! We have all read Stephen Covey's 5 Habits of Highly Successful People and Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, but that doesn't mean that we can all watch a political debate and determine who fulfilled the requirements to receive an A in some bull shit "leadership" class in undergrad leadership or business.

We are pretty sure that President Obama's Harvard Law Degree (not to mention his 4 years as PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) has equipped him with more leadership and business acumen than your undergrad degree from A&M or UNT... Just sayin...

I want us all to focus on one statement here... "it would be a lot cooler is he was" (the responder is talking about if Obama was really murdered) because "the race baiters and communists would be calling for civil unrest."

Now... Jayme Newton is WUW?'s second favorite person to ever come from Winnsboro, Texas... so we want to make this clear that this post is about whoever Clint is. And for anyone else that thinks it is ok to celebrate the idea of the assassination of our president or the idea that civil rights advocates would be happy about the assassination of our president... we would like to officially send a big fuck you to you.

You may disagree on economic policy, foreign policy, gay rights, abortion, equality for women, proper treatment for hardworking law abiding mexican immigrants, etc (although we disagree completely with you) but we, as "race baiters," do not take lightly the talk about the death of our president or the idea that we would be happy with the assassination of our president lightly. You are the reason that "race baiters exist" because racist ass holes like you exist. The Official Clint Stephens Welcome Committee,WhatUpWally?

WUW?'s, newly designated "side project" specialist, Brittany Jean, has been hard at work compiling an anthology of important side projects. From indie pop and metal to hip hop and folk, side projects have the tendency to take on lives of their own and can even be as significant as the original band (think Postal Service, Blaqk Audio, Maximum Balloon, Angels & Airwaves, Broken Bells, Father John Misty, Tom Morello, or Dustin Kensrue).